We believe that the Left of the 21st century will… be born and formed by the 21st century.
It will be born and formed on the ground of the social, class and political contradictions that will characterize the 21st century.
It will be on the ground of the forces that will belie based on these contradictions.
It will be the fronts that will be formed on the ground of these contradictions and between the belied forces.
It is this conflict that will raise and form the features of the Left in the 21st century. Within this struggle, ideas, views and concepts will be tested, developed or rejected.
Through such a struggle process, of converges and splits, tendencies and currents the forces that will characterize the existence, the character and the role of the Left in the 21st century will develop and be forged.
At the same time, they will determine the necessity (or not) of the existence of the socialist perspective in peoples” struggle and the content, the form and the character of this perspective.
Naturally it won’t come out of nowhere. All the given facts are the sequence of the already existing and coming from the 20th century. However, they will have their own particular forms and features. They will be the same and at the same time different.
What is going to happen and how, is something we have to wait and see. What we have to do is to study the reality we are experiencing. We should define it and define ourselves towards it. More specifically, we should define and define our position about the capitalist, imperialist system whose domination characterizes the current reality.
The second is to define our position towards the issue of socialism. Whether we believe that the socialist perspective is the way out for the peoples, how we deal with the socialist experience in the 20th century and the restoration.
The third is how the existing Left is defined (whatever is meant by this term) towards “itself”. Which is it, what are its features, if and how much it can respond to the demands of today and under which conditions.
The initial field is the consideration of current reality, of the capitalist–imperialist system whose domination characterizes it. We cannot make a complete analysis. But we can give a gross diagram of our consideration through a basic outline.
We are witnessing the assault of the capital to escalate unlimitedly against the working class and against the basic economic, social and political rights of the toilers. We are witnessing oppression and repression measures being promoted in monstrous scale. We are witnessing a totally reactionary turn being carried out in every field of the economic, social and political life. The system’s advocators and the “coalition of the willing” are trying either to dress all these up, to disguise them or present them as temporary and coincidental phenomena that will be surpassed. We believe that they are the very expression of the substance and the character of the system. At the same time they are the elements of tendencies ruling today within its frames.
The capitalist system is an exploitation system of the many by the few. It is based on the misappropriation of the means of production and the violent enforcement of the bourgeoisie and capital domination on the working class and the other social strata. These are the basis of its existence. From them comes the logic that characterizes the whole of its expressions and function. From them comes the phenomenon of accumulating, on one hand, tremendous wealth for the few and on the other poverty and indigence for the great majority of peoples” masses. A regime that “lives” on the basis of the exploitation of the many by the few can stand only through violence. This violence takes the form of various everyday extortions and compulsion and reaches to the point of the brutal violence of the armed police and tear gas and the bloody violence of weapons whenever it is consider necessary.
The capitalist system can exist and operate only on this ground: the ground of exploitation, the ground of chasing the profit and the constant accumulation of wealth by the capitalists. At the same time these elements are the basis of expansion, of rapaciousness, of the capital’s unrestrained tendency to expand its activity in world scale. They are the features that characterize and constitute the imperialist dimension of the capitalist system. This dimension their advocators and “willing”, within the progressive space, are trying to obscure. They do this through theories about “globalization”. They are trying to do this through shameless bobbling about the cooperation of countries and peoples; about development, prosperity and democracy.
Naturally, reality is crushing for all these. What the people experience is the economic destruction that reaches the desertification of whole regions and countries; starvation and diseases.
The abolishment of people’s and countries’ right to self-determination, independence and national sovereignty.
The imperialist interventions.
The division of peoples and countries.
The slaughter of hundreds of thousand people.
The infection of people and regions through the use of “depleted” nuclear weapons.
It is the fact that the imperialists face the world as their “property”. It is that they behave and operate as the “world’s owners”. This stands particularly for the imperialists of the West. This is a concept originated from the colonialism period. This period was the uterus of the current racism. However it is not simply a matter of concept. The main issue is its material basis. It is the fact that capitalism cannot operate otherwise but only on the basis of its imperialist dimension as well. Centuries of domination (also counting colonialism) affected in shaping specific features of existence and function. They shaped given facts and reliance without which the capitalist system cannot operate anymore. It is the necessity of having plenty and cheap manpower. This is the basis of both the assault against the working class and the modern slave trade; the enforcement of millions of “ready” and cheap working hands to “immigrate” to the imperialist metropolises. It is achieved through the over-exploitation of their countries; the destruction and the desertification of their economies.
It cannot operate without cheap energy and cheap raw materials. It cannot operate without imposing uneven terms on the allegedly “exchanges”. It cannot without having available broad and controlled markets and dispose its products in them with conditions of profit. It cannot, without securing conditions of unrestrained circulation and profit of the plundering formations of stock market capital.
The re-conquering and re-colonialization campaign of the world developing nowadays is based on this ground. It is also based on the increasingly aggravated rivalry among the imperialist and the distribution of the prey. Here are the generators that smash countries and peoples. Here lies the “right to kill” of the US imperialist that threatens every human being. Here and under these conditions are formed the campaign bases of the forces that threaten the world.
We will stay only on two issues to underline the dangerous orbit the international development has entered.
The first is the raising and the strengthening of the most destructive tendencies within the system’s frames.
The first concerns the economic dimension of those tendencies. It’s not something new. The economic crises were and are inborn expression of the capitalist system’s function. In the core of the phenomenon lies the merciless quest for profit. Its result is the wide destruction of the means of production; even wars. The system deals with them as something negative; as its weakness that they try to face. But all these seem to go to the History museum of capitalism. The new doctrine coming from the capitalism’s metropolis is “the creative destruction”. Based on this, the economic crises, even the “controlled wars”, are not something negative. On the contrary, they are the factors that “sweep” the ground form “protractor” forms and economic functions; from non profitable and productive business. They create “pure” ground and presuppositions that open the way for the capitalism’s ejection to higher and more productive function levels (exploitation). Someone might ask, why only the “small” and “controlled” wars and not the great ones. They could create a lot more “pure” ground in a larger (planet) scale. Insanity? Definitely yes!
The other side of the issue we set forth comes to answer this insanity, this nightmarish option. An American magazine published recently the “estimation” that the US was in a position to destroy the nuclear arsenal of Russia (and China) without facing any danger of nuclear response. It is about an old sick scenario. This scenario was “troubling” the American headquarters from 1945 until today. It was “set forth” again with the ’89-91 overthrows, it was recalled with the publication -a few years ago- of the intentions of the then president Nixon (1972) to strike Vietnam with nuclear weapons. It was also recalled with the “leak” of the Pentagon’s plans that aimed with their nuclear weapons the “friendly” Russia and other countries as well. In the basis of all these is the strategy for global domination; the dead end of this strategy. It is about a dead end that US tried to surpass by invading on Iraq. And they achieved exactly the opposite. They raised this dead end because they met the unbroken resistance of the Iraqi People. The option of reconsidering this strategy is something US could hardly accept.
Thus the option of a new “forward flight” rises strongly. For example it could be an attack on Iran. However an attack on Iran with conditions of Iraq would simply multiply their problems and their dead ends. Thus they “spread” the possibility to attack on Iran with “tactical” nuclear weapons. They try to prepare the climate, the ground and especially the American public opinion. They try mainly to send a “message-warning” to enemies and “friends” not to interfere. This is the one monstrous side of the case. The other one is even worse and it is connected with the old sick dream; to finish with “Cartage”, the nuclear arsenal of Russia, even through a nuclear war.
The imperialist-capitalist system exists and operates for a minority and against the overwhelming majority of the toilers. It violates ruthlessly the basic rights of the peoples. It is a system literally bloody. At the same time it is a system that cannot be changed, improved and reformed. It has already developed its most negative and most dangerous sides.
We are already witnessing a period that the imperialist-capitalist system raises and moves in the orbit of the most destructive perspectives for humanity. It is a system that threatens the very life sources on the planet; the ones that nature requires millions of years to create.
What relation can connect (on confront) us with this system? Is it a relation of cooperation, “democratic dialogue”, and “positive suggestions”? Is it a relation of relevant cooperation and confrontation aiming “deep structure changes” and reforms? Or is it a relation of absolute, sustained and uncompromising confrontation aiming only its overthrow? It is obvious that the answer each one gives defines the starting point, the ideological and political foundation of the kind of the Left they aim.
As far as we are concerned, we aim to a revolutionary Left aiming the overthrow of the system and we stand with in this direction.
Someone may agree or disagree with our estimation more or less, completely or merely. This is comprehensible and permissible. It is not permissible “not to take position” with a specific and clear way. An aspect that wishes to have a word on the issue of the Left is out of the question not to take position specifically towards the system. The very system that rules and forms this way the conditions of the course of things. Such a stance either wishes to make fool of the people or it is simply inexistent.
Towards the Socialist Perspective
The other basic connection of the seeked answer concerns the necessity of defining towards the socialist perspective. Certainly there isn’t a question for the ones that support is OK and it isn’t necessary to change. The question stands for the ones that support the necessity to overthrow the system that rules today. At the same time it stands for those, even if they rhetorically refer to the necessity for “radical” changes and overthrows or they support in any way the socialist perspective.
The answer to the question has initially a direct and current political importance. Today, the system has a significant political-ideological weapon; the view that capitalism is “one way”. This stands not, or simply not, because it has been raised from the system’s advocators and other “willing”. Mainly, it stands because it finds ground on the disappointment created by the restoration and because it strengthens a –paralyzing– feeling of dead end. The support of the socialist perspective is in a resolute degree connected with the position for the system’s overthrow. It is a decisive connecting factor of the working class and people’s struggle. It is a crucial condition of maximizing the efficiency of people’s struggle.
It is no coincidence that the existence of the Left, in every of its expressions, is historically connected with issue of the socialist perspective.
Therefore, the importance of the reestablishment and the persuasive promotion of the socialist perspective are obvious. This reestablishment will occur first and foremost on the ground of class struggle as it will be conducted in the current circumstances. Class struggle will be the primary and decisive field. It has also some basic connections concerning both the reestablishment of the socialist perspective itself and the efficient promotion of class struggle and in dialectic relation between them.
The one basic connection concerns the raising, the promotion and the defense of the offer of the working communist movement and socialism that did exist to the working class and the peoples of the world. This is very important because for decades the bourgeois and the reformists have calumniated them and they have placed a completely reversed picture of what really existed. The second concerns the interpretation of the restoration. We have clear that without persuasive explanation in this crucial chapter, the ability of reestablishing the socialist idea and perspective in people’s conscience will be the least problematic. The toiling masses and the youth ask questions – absolutely justified – and want answers.
About the Offer of the Working Communist Movement and Socialism
The movement’s offer is a very big chapter and it is impossible to present it in a few lines. We have to refer to only certain things.
The working communist movement was the core and the main militant expression of an overall liberating movement. It was movement that from the middle of the 19th century developed principally in the European territory and then expanded across the world.
It was the movement that fired and led a tremendous historic overthrow. It was the “entrance” of the people from the margins to history’s front stage. It brought the human being in the center of values and smelted it as a “measure” of their evaluation. It raised the importance and role of labor, not simply in production but in the creation and the development of human civilization. It set forth and formed the basis of a completely new and different consideration, of another scale of values for the whole of the economic and social issues.
It defined, raised and “exposed” the contradictions, the disputes and the dead ends of the capitalist system and its exploiting, oppressive and unjust character.
Vis-a-vis the “owners of the world” it opposed the people’s rights to freedom, self-determination and independence.
It fought against the war the rulers were conducting with the blood of others.
They were not only theoretical or declarations but as proposals and claims of a struggle it promoted and developed in every field.
This struggle marked the dawn of another course for humanity. At the same time it raised the communist movement to the vanguard of values and the mobilizing force of the struggle for the liberation of humanity.
At the same time, this movement was able to turn its ideas into material political power, to enforce changes, to reach even to the overthrow of the capitalist system initially in Russia and later in other countries too.
October’s Revolution was the climax of this movement’s struggle and at the same time it was the opening of a way for the reconstruction of the socialist society. Only the fact that such a revolution was carried out, won, seized and kept the power, was of historic significance. Today it seems as something that simply “took place”. Only to carry it out it wasn’t enough to defeat the power and the resistance of the rulers. First and foremost they had to defeat the awe of the wretched, the serfs and the mujiks towards the “indestructible” and “eternal”, the “holiness” of the lords’ rule. This revolution did something unthinkable. It advanced the construction of another radically different (socialist) social-economic system. It brought the vision, the “utopia” on the ground of reality. It gave the greatest, the most tangible proof that history and people were able to advance without their dynasts. It proved that there could be development that didn’t have to pass through the over-exploitation of the working class, the destruction of peasantry and the ruin of the petty bourgeois stratum. It proved that it didn’t need the “contribution” of the colonies and the depended countries. It proved that there could be development, in high level, based on the utilization of labor and the productive and creative abilities of the toiling masses.
In the backward Russia this development advanced with the establishment of the 8hour, 7hour, 6hour and 5hour shift in the unhealthy jobs. It advanced with the complete consolidation of the right to work, to insurance, to free health care; with the constant improvement of the toilers’ life conditions. All these were carried out at the same period that in the developed capitalist countries the toilers worked for 10-14 hours without insurance, without health care and without any security for their jobs or their lives.
The fact that these achievements were carried out in a backward until then country was already very important. But the crucial and more substantial issue was something else. In socialism all these were not “granted” by the state to the citizens. They were their self-evident rights without any terms or presuppositions. They were faced as elements congenital with the existence and the function of the socialist system. They were faced as elements connected with it and on the basis of a concept that considered unthinkable the existence of socialism without them.
Socialism’s building in Russia by giving specific “material” substance to long time aspirations and demands of the wretched of the earth, operated at the same time as promoter of a movement that spread like a fire across the world.
It was a movement that constituted the promoting force of humanity’s liberating movement in every field. All these “took place”, existed and they cannot be deleted or cancelled by the afterwards development, the retreats, the overthrows and the defeat.
Yet, the “slow down”, the reverse of the course from a certain point on, set forth certain serious questions. One question of crucial importance is the study and the interpretation of the conditions of this reverse.
About the conditions of restoration
If we examined the social and political forces that prevailed in Russia and the other former socialist countries we would come to an impressive, at least, conclusion. As a whole, they originate from the social and political forces dominating in the previous, allegedly “socialist” regime. The difference is, more or less in each country, in the internal order, hierarchy and authority. Naturally it also concerns the disguise they have used. From allegedly “communists” they became allegedly “democrats”. The basic element here is that this phenomenon provides us a basic “key” for the interpretation of restoration.
These social and political forces were the ones that constituted the body of the New Bourgeoisie (NB) dominated in these countries for almost forty years. The prevailing of these forces was the reason that overthrew -after Stalin’s death- the revolutionary socialist direction in Soviet Union. It was the reason that misquoted the socialist character of the regime, it undermined and abolished the socialist gains, and it prepared the conditions of restoration and finally led to it.
The origins of that NB, the ground and the conditions it was formed is an issue of particular concern. It is of particular significance to examine the ground of which conditions it managed to prevail and dominate in Soviet Union.
Its origins, its social basis of formation was in the intelligentsia stratum or in other words the stratum of the “the working intellect” as Stalin said.
Who was that intelligentsia, what was its origins and role in the soviet regime? We will quote our view briefly.
The social basis of the socialist regime was built by the working-peasant alliance. Politically the Bolshevik Party, the party of the working class, prevailed. In process (basically in the ‘30s), the stratum of the “red experts” was formed. It came to replace the bourgeois experts whom until then the soviet regime was obliged to use.
The educational explosion in Soviet Union enabled every mechanism, economic, state, military and social to be staffed by manpower from people’s origins and socialist education and ideology. That new social stratum contributed significantly in the development of soviet economy, in every sector’s more effective function, in the preparations for the coming war etc. From this aspect, the term “red experts” responded significantly to reality.
On the other had though, this very social stratum constituted the main ground, on which a number of negative tendencies and conditions developed. Briefly again: a shift of authority was noted from the working class, the party and the state to that new social force. It was a concentration of authority that gradually shifted the system’s center of gravity from the working class and the working-peasant alliance to that social stratum. In this same process, the concepts that dominated in its frames were formed. A conscience of unity and interests was formed on the ground of a concept of elite. It was an elite that believed it had special abilities and contribution in the frames of the socialist regime and therefore it owned a particular – recognized – role and authorities. On that ground developed tendencies of claiming this role and also ideas, concepts that supported theoretically that direction. This was the ground the revisionism was based on and constituted the ideological political expression of this stratum. Besides that revisionism was the political force of overthrowing the revolutionary direction after Stalin’s death.
This development, this concentration of authority from the side of the intelligentsia did not occur on its own. It could not have happened and definitely not in that scale and that way if there were not other factors as well, if a number of functions did not contribute or could not prevent that development. From our side, we consider as the crucial factor, the gradual retreat of the working class regarding its active, decisive role. The working class could constitute the main force of the revolutionary overthrow because it was organized as a class, in the superior level, it operated and moved as such in the most direct and active way. It continued to operate as such for a long period after the revolution. It didn’t simply support the Bolshevik Party, the socialist government and the soviet state. It was a force that participated directly in forming decisions and directions and operated constantly as the reference field of the orientation that was being formed.
However, from a certain point on, this function started abating, degrading and a process of shifting authority opened. We could say towards the party, but it is not accurate. The party, the party itself, operated more as an intermediary link of this shift than the one that undertook these authorities.
We believe that the second factor was the abating, neutralizing process of the party’s character as a party of the working class. It was a process similar and parallel with the aforementioned in regards with the working class. It was a process of shifting authority from the party to the state. It is not accurate at all what has been said widely, that the party replaced the state. Instead it was the state that “absorbed” the party and basically its leading level. Thus there was a “distinguish” in the party between its leading dynamic which embodied in the state and transformed into state. On the other hand, the mass of party’s members, the one that previously was connected and operated, and as a whole, in reference with the working class, turned into an inactivated body.
Totally, there was a shift of authority, a concentration of authority (and power) to the state. The authority of authority, the center of gravity shifted from the working class to the state. Still, this interpretation is not accurate. The state, never and nowhere is a self-subsisting institution.
It is organized, exists and operates in regards with a class, with social forces. Which were those forces? They were the forces of the intelligentsia, the “working intellect”. They were the stratum of the cadres in the economic field, the state field and the party. The state, the state mechanism operated as a “meeting” field for all of them. It operated as a unification and co-formation field of their features to a unified social stratum. They originated from different sectors and they also had differences. Because of exactly this situation there were two different revisionist tendencies. But the main issue was the fact that they constituted a social stratum with common interests towards and against the working class and peasantry. On that ground they united in the common revisionist political direction against the communist, revolutionary one.
These were in general lines the conditions that permitted intelligentsia to concretize into a social and political force and form those conditions that allowed it, after Stalin’s death, to prevail in the Soviet Union and most of the socialist countries.
Regarding the reasons, they could be separated to objectives and – if we could use the term – the ones of subjective character.
Regarding the first one, it was connected with the aggregated conditions, in the frames of which the revolutionary overthrow was conduced. The whole problem could be summarized in what Stalin mentioned; that the socialist relations should be created “from zero”. This formulation gives in a vivid way the substance, the core of the problem. There was a substantial difference between the passage from feudalism to capitalism on one hand and the passage from capitalism to socialism on the other. Capitalism was shaped, formed up to a certain point in the frames of feudalism. Thus when the bourgeoisie seized the power, on one hand it had been concretized to a resolute degree to a “class for itself” but not only this. Simultaneously it had developed a net of productive, economic relations on whose basis it could operate directly – as capitalism – to develop them further more etc.
The proletariat instead was organized as a class within the frames of the capitalist system, but it was impossible to develop productive, economic relations that could be correspondent to the type of the (socialist) system that expressed and was expressed by the nature of the working class. This was objective and it was connected with the directly active role of the bourgeoisie in the economic process, contrary to the feudal class that was “out” of it and it was simply collecting wealth.
So the revolutionary overthrow answered to a decisive degree the problem but not the whole of it. It gave to the working class the main role, it opened the way for further development of society that was expressing the rule of the bourgeoisie but this didn’t mean that this development was secured and more to a certain – communist – direction. A whole transitional period opened. Initially, the socialist direction had prevailed but at the same time it was open to other directions as well.
This fact was imprinted in a whole of parameters but here we will stay on two.
The first one was the character of the productive economic relations that were being formed and the role of the working class.
The measures that were taken, the transformations that were carried out had initially socialist character and direction. They had formed; they had concretized an initially socialist economic basis.
Still, they were far from constituting completely transformations of socialist and communist character.
Respectively, the working class was raised as the leading social and political (with its party) power, the one that defines the character of the system.
However it was far from prevailing in every field and expression of the economic and social life and determining completely their development.
This fact set forth a problem of dual perspective with contradictory sides.
If those productive relations that weren’t any more capitalist but they weren’t completely socialist would develop to this or the other direction, it would be determined by the role and the power of the social and political forces.
On the other hand, the level and the character of the productive relations determine the position (in production, in economy etc) of the social forces and therefore their role and power. In other words, the way the productive relations develop is connected with the role of the social forces and at the same time the role of the social forces is connected with the position they have based on the productive relations.
So, what is the answer, the solution to this contradictory situation of things?
Our view is that the link is in the role and the power the social forces have “each time” and in our case the working class. Certainly, in life, it is not as simple as it sounds here. It presents a number of problems we cannot deal with in this discussion. We say though that we consider as a decisive factor the concretizing level of the working class and the consciousness of the problems it has to face.
The other question concerns how much, the problems that were to emerge, were perceivable or how much it was possible, from a subjective aspect, to be perceivable.
From an objective aspect the whole of the problems and their dimensions could not be perceivable. The consequence was the weaknesses in consideration and therefore of preparation to confront them.
Certainly there were elements of correct consideration from before. For example, Marx’s view that communism is not a model and on the existence of the transitional period of society’s transformation. It was Engel’s’ view that nationalization was the most direct, accessible and effective way but it was not the ideal form of socialization etc. Yet all these hadn’t and couldn’t have the development and the “committing” documentation that can be given only by their leaning on tangible, real given facts.
We consider as a basic element the fact that the transitional period from socialism to communism was faced as a “political” period. Namely as a period rather short where the decisive advance of transformations, development etc, would form the conditions of the passage to communism. To this situation contributed the fact that the “shape of the course”, with resolute factor the revolutionary impetus, gave for a period significant results and great achievements.
This had as a consequence the consideration – dealing with it as a process that more or less could be scheduled, planned and carried out as such. In connection with this was the raising of a political body – theoretically the party – to the role of the course’s “regulator”.
Later of course it became understood that it wasn’t about a short and simply or mainly a political period. It was understood it was about a whole historic period of social character with everything this included.
Because in action finally it wasn’t the working class, it wasn’t even the party as a party – that concentrated power and authorities. It was – practically – the state and in substance the intelligentsia that prevailed in every mechanism; economic, state, party and particularly in their superior level.
Which are the conclusions from the aforementioned? We will be limited to some basic ones.
It was the understanding that the transitional period is a long term historic period of social character.
It was the understanding that the transformation of the productive, economic, etc relations cannot be made for once but it is a constant process of transformation which intensifies during this period. This process is the “development” of the basic socialist transformation of the advancing phase.
It was the understanding that a fundamental condition for this was the role of the working class, which should be all the more capable to determine the function and the course of production and the economy of society.
It was the understanding that this process, besides everything else, was a battle field. It was the understanding that the socialist system, like any other system, had its own disputes and contradictions. They may were different in the capitalist system but they still existed. The solution of the disputes and contradictions would require confrontation and probably fights of class character.
Such a process of such a character, it is obvious for us, cannot be “scheduled” or “planned”. We must say a few things more to avoid misunderstandings. This doesn’t mean that the schedules and plans are not necessary. However, they are limited by the given facts that have in their disposition the ones that carry them out. When it is about a whole historic period, what can be defined (and as much) is the general direction, the orientation and the social basically forces that support this orientation.
This means that the main role, the authority of authority does not belong to the state. It does not even belong to the party. It belongs to the working class. Lenin’s adage is well known; “only a class can overthrow another class”. We believe that this stands a lot more in regards with the issue set forth here. We believe that only a class can transform a society. Only a class in its total and constant operation and activation in every field, in every expression, in every function and every structure of the economic and social life can carry out such a complete transformation. No plan and no one can substitute it in this role.
This fact does not negate the necessity of the existence and the role of its political organ, the party of the working class. Class struggle is expressed both in the social and political field. In fact, it is often concentrated in political confrontations whose outcome has a significant to crucial character. Therefore we believe that the concretizing of the working class will be incomplete if it is not integrated in its political dimension as well, in the field of concretizing of its political organs. The dialectic relation between class and party means that the authority of the class does not block the political role of the party. And the political role of the party does not negate the fact that the authority of authority belongs in the end to the working class.
The last question concerns how much these problems were perceivable and how. Our view is that they were perceivable but up to a certain degree and not in their true dimensions. This was expressed in the way they were dealt with. During the whole period, particularly after the end of the war, within CPSU an intense confrontation was conducted between the Stalinist tendency and the revisionist ones. The issue was that despite the then Stalin’s huge status, this confrontation was conducted on the ground that negative conditions had already been formed. They were the consolidation of the intelligentsia and its revisionist tendencies. It was the weakening of the function and the role of the party itself as an organ of the working class. It was the retreat and the neutralization of the working class itself. Thus the revisionist tendencies developed towards Stalin’ status, they avoided the frontal confrontation, or even they “agreed” with his views. Thus after his death the two revisionist tendencies, despite their differences, moved coordinated and decisively to purge every resistance nest within the party and the state. Their domination opened a completely different page in Soviet Union’s history.
The last great battle of the revolutionary, working, communist direction took place in China, especially with the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. We cannot refer to this significant chapter of the movement here. We will only underline one thing. Many have said a lot, criticizing or slandering since then and until today the GPCR, about the inevitable in such events mistakes, the exaggerations, the insufficiencies etc. Today and based on the development in China, someone, not a communist but simply an honest person cannot say one thing. He can say that he doesn’t know which forces fought against which during the GPCR and what the outcome of the fight was.
As we aforementioned the fact that there was negative development, the restoration was conduced, the working communist movement was defeated does not negate for us what was conduced. Simultaneously, and this is more significant, it does not negate what can and must be done. It was the working communist movement and socialism that set forth in the agenda of history the issue of humanity’s liberation from centuries of slavery. It set forth the vision of another society on the ground of reality. They were and they continue to be the only total answer, the only proposal of a total negation of the capitalist system.
In the current conditions of the imperialist, capitalist barbarity domination it continues being the only true way out for the peoples.
It is the answer to the exploitation and oppression system. It is the answer to the violation of human rights, to wars and the cold blooded murder of millions people. With socialism, all the basic presuppositions for a society of justice, a society without exploitation and oppression, a society where the center of value will have the toilers, for a world without wars, are created.
Certainly all these will not happen by themselves. History has showed that socialism, despite it moved in such an orbit, despite it opened ways to the future, could not advance beyond a certain point. However, this is exactly the issue that history sets forth to the current Left. To learn from all these and leaned on the ground of current reality to advance further more.
With these views and evaluations anyone can agree or disagree totally or merely. What is out of the question, particularly for political forces that wish to refer to the Left is “not to take a position”. It is out of the question, political forces that wish to present themselves as left, not to take a position with the most concrete way towards the issue of socialism. The socialism that existed and mainly the socialist perspective.
The Left vis-a-vis “itself”
The third chapter concerns the issue of hoe this Left is defined vis-a-vis “itself”. Which is the Left today? What does it carry from the previous century? How is the broader Left presented on the questions of our era? What are the new elements it embodies? Above all, what are the questions it has to answer? How much it can do this and under what conditions?
This broader Left as it comes from the 20th century bears in a decisive degree the features of retreat and defeat. At the same time it also bears the way by which this defeat was conduced. It bears the terms on whose ground this defeat was confronted.
More specifically these features are:
The prevailing of revisionism and the New Bourgeoisie in the former socialist countries
The prevailing of revisionism and reformism in the greater part of the communist parties in the other countries
With the Brezhnev’s current moving in an orbit of complete connection with the Soviet Union policy.
With the so called “euro-communist” current that the more it was released from Moscow the more it became connected with the bourgeoisie policies in the countries each party was operating.
With other currents, of contradicting character, being confused and constantly retrogressing from over-revolutionary to bourgeois-reformist concepts, positions and practices.
At the same period and under the influence of the previous negative factor, there was a set back of fundamental significance. The process of the working class’ marginalizing developed further more. Of the working class that was the body of class struggle and the class, social basis for the Left of any kind. Towards that negative development the m-l movement fought trying to reverse it. It is a fact that it did not succeed. The basic reason fro this was the defeat of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China. The Cultural Revolution was the most significant effort of the communist movement after the 50w to answer the questions required by the further advance of socialist building. On the other hand the very m-l movement in the other countries did not manage to be concretized and include in its physiognomy and line the issues set by the Cultural Revolution.
The same negative impact appeared within the frames of the national liberating movement, although it was done with slower rates. It is a fact that the sharpness of contradictions in the zone of storms kept open the struggle fronts against the remnants of colonialism and imperialism. Therefore they provided the support ground for the respective political forces. However the overall negative development finally brought here its results.
The same negative development defined the conditions, the form of the defeat and the dissolving character of what was appearing as Left in global scale. In order to happen something else, this Left should have been concretized not simply on an independent basis with the whole negative development conduced in the former socialist countries. It should have been concretized in complete confrontation with it. As it is well known, this happened only in a small scale. Thus the collapse of the alleged socialist camp carried down to defeat and in terms of dismantle the greater part of this alleged Left.
Only few forces resisted without naturally succeeding to give a different character to the defeat. They managed not to be carried down by the unconditional surrender current, to sustain the flame alive for more favoring conditions.
Due to this we witnessed the shameful phenomenon of millions rank and file of the communist parties in the eastern block with their leaderships in charge slept one night “communists” and woke up the other morning “socialists”, “democrats” and anticommunists. It was also the fact that the whilom “euro-communist” current, almost all together and “concretely” rejected every communist or even socialist reference. Even within its frames the “questioning” of whether there was sense in distinguishing between the Left and the Right had developed. And it was finally the very system that raised them from the swamp in order to appoint to them the role of the “new Left” of Clinton, Blare, Jospin, Schroeder etc.
This development accentuated the phenomena of disappointment, confusion, disorientation and neutralization; that consolidated the yielding tendency in mass scale.
It also consolidated objectively and subjectively the ideological and political domination of the system.
It placed theories of acceptance and embodiment of the system.
It raised the defeat as a return to the “natural order of things”.
It smelted capitalism to the essence of Democracy.
It raised imperialist domination to “globalization”.
It raised capitalism as “one way” for humanity.
It turned the imperialist interventions and the people’s slaughter into “peace” interventions.
It raised everything that constituted the ideological basis of the great shame.
It was the support (theoretically, politically and practically) of the imperialist intervention and bombing in Yugoslavia. Generally it a situation that the attempts, the nests and the forces of resistance were rather isolated, they had not the ground and the abilities to develop in order to respond to the needs required by the development. It was more difficult because they had to face others form the space of the broader Left. They had to face those who adopted the logic of “equal distance”. They had to face the stance of inactivity or even undermining the resistance efforts.
Turning point – the split
The turning point in this overall negative development was the emergence of what we could call a split within the system’s frames. It emerged at the same time with the preparations of the US assault on Iraq. This wasn’t irrelevant with it but it was not the only reason. Regarding the basic terms of this split’s emergence:
It was the escalating of the capital’s assault that beyond the working class it was expanded to the medium strata. It was an assault that dismantled the social and political alliances created (basically in the capitalist metropolises) after WW2 and constituted its internal support basis.
It was the imperialist campaign of re-conquering, re-colonializing, of the world that aggravated the contradiction between the peoples and imperialism and created contradictions with bourgeois forces of the countries that were hit.
It was the conquest of the “East” from the imperialist countries of the East and their attempt to turn the “East” (even Russia and China) into the “inland of the West.
It was the ambition of USA for global domination and the promotion of a respective policy that started worrying the whole of the imperialist forces. It caused the reaction even from the USA allies, the European imperialists, as it was expressed in the case of Iraq.
One side is the “unification” of the capitalist system in global scale after the collapse of the eastern block. The other is that based on the same development were formed the terms for the appearance of an overall split within the system’s frames. It was about a total split and within its frames all the terms and rules of the system’s function were set under judgment both internally and internationally. So did happen in every internal social and political alliance and every international, even strategic character alliance.
On the other hand elements of people’s resistance and struggle’s restoration started emerging. At the same time and within the same frames certain social and political forces seem to surpass the shock of the ’89-’91 overthrows.
The resistance of the working class was activated against the capital’s assault though strikes and mobilizations.
Mass rejection phenomena of central choices by the bourgeois governments emerged.
The struggle of the revolutionary movements in the zone of storms consolidated and developed.
Millions of marchers flood the streets of the world demonstrating their rage against the criminal plans of US imperialism.
The heroic resistance of the Iraqi people raised the dead end of US strategy and proved once more that even the most powerful imperialism is not irresistible.
Totally, better presuppositions were formed for resistance development and the people’s struggle of the movement. It could be said that it is again the time for the Left. Only someone has to “inform” it. Because the existing Left, more likely has not understood it. Either it does not wish to or it cannot undertake the responsibilities set by history.
Doubtlessly, the development has affected in this side and in the direction of greater mobilization. Still they are far way from the ones required nowadays. More specifically:
The whilom Brezhnev current continues being in a crisis-quest of identity and policy. The most characteristic element of its ideological confusion is the persistence to the Brezhnev model of “socialism”. They are unable to understand Brezhnev-ism was the outcome of specific historical circumstances. They are unable to understand that there is no “direct way” from capitalism to Brezhnev-ism. Life will oblige them to “see” it. They will change willingly or not. The question is to one specific direction. It is expressed in their general political line. Their anti-imperialism is characterized by a strong tendency to seek an international support current, in whose frames forces like Zuganov and “socialist” China appear. Their stance is similar towards the movement, where the basic element is the lack of trust to the masses and the “fear towards the movement”.
The whilom “euro-communist” current in this particular historic form ended its days with the most disgraceful way. It mutated in the Clinton “Left” and lost everything. This doesn’t mean that the reformist tendencies of every type will stop emerging within the movement. We are witnessing already and in international scale the emergence of the Forum that constitutes a mutation of the previous but not only. A significant role to their concretizing played the choices and the support of the bourgeois end even imperialists circles. Nevertheless we must not miss a significant side. The Forums managed to embody also the mood of other social and political forces. These forces have receiving the increasingly powerful pressure of the overall reactionary development and they present resistance tendencies. A significant role for this played the shortcomings of the revolutionary movement to give a persuasive and effective way out to these tendencies and dispositions.
There are also other tendencies and currents significantly characterized by radical and militant dispositions. Yet, at the same time the elements of confusion and the impact of bourgeois-reformist concepts are strong within their frames.
The course of each one of these tendencies will depend on the direction they will follow in order to solve this contradiction that characterizes them.
Will the radical and militant disposition enforce the review-correction of the erroneous concepts or the erroneous concepts will neutralize in the end the militant dispositions? If the first one is a positive development the latter is a negative one we have already witnessed in particular cases.
The relevant autonomy of the m-l movement from the collapse process provided the ability for organizations and forces to “hold on”. Their support on the tradition of the communist movement, the class unpromising that characterized the forces that managed to hold on, “preserved” them from transformations and mutations like the ones we witnessed in the past. The same features constitute fundamental support elements of their further course. But they are not enough. If they wish to respond to the role they aspire to achieve they must be bolder. They must form and build their physiognomy and role based on the demands set today by class struggle.
The national liberating movement, the revolutionary and m-l forces in the zones of storms proved to be more resisting, for the reasons we aforementioned. This fact gave the ability to the reorganization to move in faster rates. The movement has already emerged hopeful in countries like Nepal, India, Philippines and Latin America. But the fact that the international dimension of the movement has not been developed in the same rate sets forth a serious problem. These movements don’t have yet the support of an international revolutionary current that would consolidate the even more decisive advance of their objectives. On the other hand and under these circumstances, the imperialist are able to isolate a movement, rally their power against it and crash it. Certainly it isn’t the same as in the ‘90s but still the problem exists.
This Left – as a whole and as it is – can respond to the current necessities? We believe that a presupposition for something like this is to be re-concretized, to be transformed and reorganized in every of its elements. The first term fro this would be the “recognition of the situation”, the disposition to undertake such a responsibility. How much this is possible is obvious from the stance of some at least forces towards the movement.
It is a fact that the movement, the people’s struggle continues being characterized by great and serious shortcomings. It is simply natural. But these shortcomings are the reason for some ones to exercise a “criticism” that underestimates, degrade and even scorn the struggle conducted by the people in the various resistance fronts. This kind of “criticism” is focusing in the Iraqi people struggle, and generally in the struggle forms developing in the Middle East. We don’t mean to expropriate the right to criticism. We consider it not simply as a right but as an obligation to the movement. However, we believe that none has the right to “forget” the Iraqi people is fighting with the most powerful war machine of the world; with the worst enemy of the peoples.
We believe that the Left should make its own self-criticism before criticizing any movement. We believe that the shortcomings of the movement, in its every expression, have a common background. It is the retreat, the defeat of the Left, revolutionary, working communist movement. It was a defeat that originated both in objective reasons and in a decisive degree to its shortcomings, mistakes and insufficiencies of this movement. This is what it has to face. So this Left should, first of all, throw away all this accumulated rubbish of almost fifty years. They are theories, ideological concepts, political views, solidified features, attitudes and practices that characterize in various gradations, the whole of its entities. Afterwards it should advance its self-criticism deeper.
We don’t have the illusion that all these forces are willing to do this. We know that the scorning “criticism” to the ones that fight even in a “wrong way” is for some ones simply the alibi for their own choices. On the same ground it is clear that everyone that refers or appears to be Left will not walk on the same path.
The last fact is connected with the issue of the Left’s unity. Actually it is about the trade of unity to which some forces are going about. It is no coincidence that usually it is about the same forces that undermine the possibilities for common activity the same time they swear on “unity”. For, naturally, the possibility of common activity is one thing and the ideological and political unity of the Left is another. The confusion cultivated by some ones is nothing but innocent. Let us say a few more things about this.
There were very specific historic conditions and they were the ground for the existence of the unity and the formation of a unified basic body of the movement, particularly the 3rd International current. We could summarize them in two: it was the fact that the Leninist Revolutionary strategic was completely confirmed in practice, with October Revolution. It was the fact that the building of socialism in Russia confirmed (for a long time) the other side as well. It was the view for the possibility of creating another society with a specific socialist form and character. These were the fundamental conditions based on which the current of the 3rd International rallied within its frames and “round” it the great majority of the left social and political forces, tendencies and currents, and marginalized at the same time everything else.
The restoration process negated the side of the socialist construction. It affected negatively to the status of the Leninist revolutionary strategic despite the fact that it wasn’t directly proven wrong. So, it is only natural, after all these, to be different interpretations of the development, to seek different ways to answer the questions and different tendencies and currents to develop.
The multi-split is also a consequence of the defeat while it still has a “stable” social background. It is something we have to recognize and have to accept that we will be facing it for a long time. Above all we should understand that it is not going to be faced by “exorcism” and other magic and “fast” recipe. It is a question that will be answered in a course within the movement and in terms of the movement.
At the same time we should have clear that not “all” of us will unite to a unified direction. This course will be a process of unity and struggle, of converges and splits.
This re-concretizing and re-organizing of the Left in the 21st century can be carried out on the ground of specific conditions and demands. We have already aforementioned to two fundamental conditions. The first is the definition towards the imperialist-capitalist system. It is the orientation to building a Left of revolutionary character. It is the definition towards the socialist perspective, the rejection of the view that capitalism in an “only way”; that the way out for the peoples exists and is in the socialist-communist direction. Such a Left can only have one specific social support and reference basis.
Here is the most crucial issue of all. It is the necessity for the “anew” concretizing of the proletariat to a “class for itself”. The Left for almost two centuries has connected its existence with the struggle of the working class. If we studied history we would see that both the stages or advancing and retreating of the movement were in direct connection with the each time concretizing level of the working class. It is no coincidence. Both the revolutionary struggle and the socialist building can advance only as long as they are leaning on a social force that has the ability and the will to fight for these objectives. Lenin said: “a class can be overthrown by another class”. We would like to add that a society can be transformed only by a class. This class for very particular reasons is the working class.
Besides the aforementioned we should also define specifically the following:
The contradictions in today’s world. The struggle fronts. The forces confronting each other and the character of their confrontation. Who are the enemies and who are the friends for the peoples and their struggle. The rejection of any kind of illusions and disorientating views.
It is the rejection of the illusions based on the distinction of the US ruling factors to hawks and pigeons. It is about the views on which the creation of the Clinton “Left” was based on. Today this tendency due to the aggravation of the disputes between US and European imperialists has slackened. Yet it is possible that it may rise in the front stage with “demands”.
It is the rejection of the view about dangerous and “harmless” imperialists or even views that obscure the imperialist character of specific powers; the European imperialists, Russia, China. To focus our struggle against the one we consider as the prime enemy of the peoples is correct. But it doesn’t mean we should leave the other imperialist powers untouched. It may be even worse. It is to lead the movement to rally round one imperialist power and to self neutralize.
It is the rejection of the illusions about the role of the bourgeoisies that seek for themselves to re-negotiate their position in the world tableau. Independently from possible tactical choices, the left movement must have cleared two things. First and foremost, is that the case of the working class and the people cannot be identified with the case of the respective bourgeoisie but exactly the opposite. Second, it is the fact that the independent, autonomous concretizing of the movement based on its own objectives and aspirations constitutes a nonnegotiable term. It is generally the rejection of concepts, views and theories that obscure the system’s character that directly or indirectly lead to the acceptance of the system’s terms.
In any case, this Left can be re-concretized only within the movement. It can be concretized in the struggle fronts already developing and the others that will emerge. The Left will either be concretized-formed within these struggles or simply it will not exist.
In the resistance front to the capital’s assault
In the resistance to the imperialist campaign and particularly the US war plans
In the struggle against the greater enemy of the peoples, USA and its plans for global domination
In the resistance and the struggle against the imperialist intervention, in the solidarity to the peoples being attacked
In these fronts common activity should develop. In these fronts can unite militantly broader social and political forces.
At the same time in these fronts new ideas, views, tendencies, currents and organizations will be tested. They will be either developed or rejected. They will unite or split. And the Left of the 21st century will form and forge its identity.
